


Is Anybody Here Still Left Alive...?

by Anonymous



Category: Slipknot (Band)
Genre: Adopted Children, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst and Tragedy, Being Lost, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Brother Feels, Brotherly Love, Character Death, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Family Dynamics, Family Feels, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Homesickness, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I Don't Even Know, I Made Myself Cry, I'm Sorry, Inspired by Music, Iowa, My First Work in This Fandom, Near Death Experiences, POV Alternating, Please Don't Hate Me, Possible Character Death, Post-Band, Pre-Zombie Apocalypse, Returning Home, Road Trips, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, Triggers, Zombie Children, Zombies, inspired by video games
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:35:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23272573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: 𝘐𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘣𝘦 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯- 𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘪𝘥 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘪𝘵𝘴’ 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘸𝘰, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘴 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘮.---OrThe one in which Slipknot find themselves in the actual zombie apocalypse. Someone had to do it.
Relationships: Brenna Gray/Paul Gray, Chantel Crahan/Shawn Crahan, Stacy Riley/Mick Thomson, Stephanie Luby/Corey Taylor
Comments: 5
Kudos: 7
Collections: Anonymous





	Is Anybody Here Still Left Alive...?

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Before The Lobotomy](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/570889) by starrystjimmy. 



> Title is taken from the song Gone Sovereign by Stone Sour
> 
> \---
> 
> so this is my first Slipknot fic, as well as my first zombie story. so to keep myself from embarrassment I figured i would keep this anon until I field the reception of this crazy fucked up thing I've created
> 
> but anywho- some notes!  
> First Off, this takes place around 2008-2009, shortly after the release of All Hope Is Gone and before Paul's death  
> Second, this means Chris and Joey are still with the band  
> Third, Jay and V-man will be making appearances, altho I'm not quite sure how far down the line that'll occur  
> Four, this story is still being drafted to some extent. i have an endgame and basic storyline plotted out but the bunnies may attack or what-have-you so plz be patient and point out any grammatical or continuity AU issues yall spot  
> Last And Most Important, this story is Not made to be making light of the current World Situation in relation to covid and everything. however, because of quarantine I am able to focus more on my writing when it strikes me and some of the current world occurrences have given me some ideas and real-life basis for some aspects of this fic. If this bothers you, I apologize, but I will have trigger warnings at the beginning of each chapter to try and field any reactions.
> 
> that being said here's the warnings and I hope ya'll enjoy
> 
> WARNINGS:  
> graphic depictions of gore and injury  
> explicit language (but this is slipknot guys come on)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑎 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑧𝑜𝑛  
> 𝐼𝑡'𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑎 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑙-𝑏𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑚𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑒

**_“THE LIMITS OF THE DEAD!”_ **

Corey raises his arms, basking in the spotlight as the cheers and screams of the crowd ring out before him. Sweat runs down his body, leaving trails behind his mask as he shakes his head and laughs, eyes glancing two of his bandmates on either side of him: Chris and Jim on the right, with Shawn and Mick off to his left. The last few beats have been drummed out by Joey somewhere behind him, and Corey allows himself to smile as the crowd seems to get ever louder.

“You still with me Charlotte?” He yells into the mic, hopping down from his spot on the amp to walk toward his right, looking down at the pit just a few feet away. The fans are clamoring to reach the stage, falling over each other, and Corey lets his gaze wander past the pit, out to where over 20,000 maggots were cheering.

“I know you can do better than that,” he says, grinning, “I said are you still fucking with me Charlotte?”

The screams and cheers echo again, and Corey smirks as his eyes meet Mick’s, who just nods back, playing a short riff in tandem with Jim to get the crowd hyped for the next song in the set.

Corey turns to look at Joey, giving a subtle nod that is returned as the drummer goes to start the next song, the beginning beats of The Heretic Anthem playing until a blood curdling scream reverberates through the cool night air.

Joey falters, and Corey feels himself go on autopilot as he spins back around and faces the crowd, seeing his bandmates do the same as they try to pick out the source in the crowd. The fans in the pit seem just as confused as the band Corey notices, raising the mic as he struggles to make out any details in the darkness.

“Everyone okay? Anyone know which way that-”

_eeeeeeuuuuurrrrhhhhh_

The whole crowd seems to move as the scream resounds once more, this time coupled by the yells of panic as twenty-thousand people all try to move at once to escape something they can’t see or put a location to. But that’s when Corey has the unfortunate experience of looking toward the lawn area in the back, where hundreds of humanoid figures seem to swarm and lurch, not quite running as they began to latch onto those unlucky enough to be in their way.

“What the fuck?”

Corey barely registers Chris’ breathless whisper over the speakers, or even the feedback from his own mic as it drops to the stage from his shaking fingers. He feels like he’s on autopilot again, feet slowly backing up from the edge of the stage as the pit, that was trying half-heartedly to get over the barrier before, now jumps and pushes over people around them in an attempt to escape the barrier and run in the direction of the parking lots.

His ears seem to have gone deaf, no sound registering around him even though the singer knows without a doubt his in-ears are filled with sounds of panic and the sight of the shadow horde moving closer makes him think the air has to be filled with the sound of that horrific scream.

Even more disturbing- although it could probably be debated -is the sight of the horde as it closes in on the back rows of the pit, close enough to be lit by the stage lights as the figures tackle the unfortunate. No longer hidden by the darkness, Corey realizes that they aren’t people- _can’t_ be people… Nothing human can or would tear the throat off another with a scream of agony mixed with triumph.

“-ey, Corey, come on, man! Corey, we gotta-”

Corey blinks, and suddenly the horde is only a few dozen feet away, about halfway through the crowd that is still screaming, and he is still standing in the middle of the stage. The hand on his shoulder is huge and strong- _Mick_.

As if someone had hit him with jumper cables, Corey is suddenly moving again, masked eyes meeting Mick’s, opening his mouth to respond but Mick just shakes his head urgently before forcibly grabbing the singer and hurrying off the stage. The more Corey looks around, the more he realizes that Jim, Craig, and Chris are already in front of him and Sid, Paul, Joey and Shawn are somewhere behind him.

All of them had ditched their instruments at some point, Corey realizes belatedly, still being led from behind by Mick since he’s still out of it. _Is this a panic attack? Oh god, not now._

“Corey, you have to calm down,” comes Mick’s voice, steady but with an edge of panic. “The last thing we need is you freaking out on us.”

“I’m good.”

Corey’s sure Mick is giving him a look but just focuses on moving forward, following Jim as the guitarist leads them through backstage and soon they find themselves outside, the tour bus not far away.

The screaming has yet to stop.

“Where are we going?” Sid pipes up from behind, making Corey look over his shoulder where, despite their masks, he can tell the other four members are watching on with anxiety.

Looking back at Jim, Corey feels just as lost as the tallest seems, posture full of nerves even without turning to face his eight bandmates.

“Anywhere but here.”

“Jim, we’re literally less than twenty miles down the road from one of the most populated cities on the East Coast, where the fuck are we going to go where there aren’t-”

“I don’t know, Chris, but what else are we supposed to do?” Jim whirls, brown eyes blazing. “Those…” he swallows, “things, whatever they are, just killed twenty thousand people! The further away we can get, the better off we’ll be regardless so I vote we get some supplies off the bus as fast as possible and keep moving.”

“I agree,” Craig speaks up, making the whole band turn their necks to stare at him, “We need to keep moving, but we can’t do that without a plan.”

“Supplies first, then plan,” Corey reasons, warily eyeing where he can see some fans still running from the venue. “We’re sitting ducks out here; let’s move.”

The nine all share a glance before moving towards the bus, silently agreeing that Jim and Mick will stand guard while Corey, Paul, Sid, and Craig search the bus and Shawn and Chris search the roadies’ bus a few feet away.

“How many bags do we have?” Paul asks, hauling his own up onto his bunk in order to stuff anything of use into it- food, water, some random batteries, and the emergency first aid that was stashed next to the kitchen.

“Nine, one for each of us,” Sid responds, poking his head out from rummaging through the bathroom (even though they didn’t keep much), “Hey, why don’t we just take the bus? Wouldn’t that make things a hella lot easier?”

Craig snorts from somewhere in the front of the bus. “Those things react to sound, didn’t you notice? Soon as Corey dropped the mic, the feedback made them swarm toward the stage.”

“Wait, seriously?” Corey asks, weighing his bag in his hands as he stuffs in a rain jacket.

“You were too busy freaking out,” Paul answers calmly, sighing. “Besides, everyone and their mother is going to try and drive out to the middle of nowhere and escape. We’d be stuck even worse than we are right now.”

Silence falls after that, the only sounds being the rummaging of containers.

“Shawn and Chris are back, you guys done?” Jim questions, knocking lightly on the jam of the door as he walks in. “We should get moving before some of them decide to start wandering back here.”

“Yeah, we’re done, Peach,” Paul replies, tossing the guitarist’s bag at him before tugging on his own.

The other three follow after the bassist, handing off the bags to their respective owners before realizing they have no idea where they are in relation to anything, let alone where to go even if they _did._

“Uh, anyone have a fully charged phone?”

Craig sighs before offering up his phone with its glorious 89% battery. “Just be quick; electricity may not be plentiful soon.”

Chris nods his thanks and pulls up Google Maps as Jim rattles off the name of the venue, the others watching their surroundings with nervous gazes.

Screams could still be heard, and Corey thought he could hear fire burning somewhere nearby, along with the fading sirens of some emergency vehicle or another in the distance. The screams were the worst part. The main one is the nightmarish hybrid of a snake and a crying mental patient; a combination that may not sound like it’d even make sense but it’s only the way Corey could think to describe it. Under the noise of the damned, still human yells of pain and anguish rung out in a haunting echo of the enthusiastic and joyous cries of not but half an hour before.

“Got it.”

Jim’s voice makes Corey jump but he shakes it off and looks at the guitarist with curiosity.

“Got what?”

“We go that way-” Jim points to the left of the stage. “-which is west. That’ll start taking us toward a smaller town called Concord. Should be about a three hour walk, give or take. Depending on how fast we move, we could probably get there and find somewhere safe before those things take over everything.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Shawn says, handing Mick one of his spare bats, “Chris found a gun and some ammo in one of the cases, but beyond that we’re screwed. Everyone stay close and stay quiet. Let’s move.”

No one argues with Shawn, simply sharing one more glance among them before Jim takes the lead with Chris right behind him, gun at the ready. They move quickly away from the venue, all nine members carefully watching their surroundings and keeping a keen ear out for any screams that sound just a little too close for comfort- all the while trying to ignore the all-too-human sounds underlying it all.

They try to stay in forested areas when possible, the roads having been swarmed with cars and hordes of the… things. But naturally, there comes a point where the group is forced to traverse alongside a section of the I-85 leading out of Charlotte. It’s a tense fifteen minutes of trying not to jump at every little sound and ignoring the people running in terror, while also trying not to draw attention to themselves as they move quickly down the side of the congested interstate.

“Fucking- son of a bitch!”

Corey tenses at the sound of Mick’s yell, whipping around to see the guitarist on his back in the grass, holding back the thing that tackled him with Shawn’s bat.

The creature shrieks, clawing to try and reach Mick’s head as blood trails down its face and soaks through the hospital gown it’s dressed in, but Mick keeps trying to push it off.

“Chris, shoot it!”

“If you stopped moving and gave me a clear shot-”

Mick shoves the thing off him with a thrust of the bat, forcing it to stumble back and scream, clawing at its own face and making more sores and scratches join the ones already oozing blood and pus. There’s another scream, then the creature arches its back and shows off the face of what had not but hours earlier been an obviously beautiful young woman, her matted black hair casting a curtain around her scarred face.

She sniffs, turning her eyes on Corey and takes a step in his direction, a look of incomprehension in her eyes and etched on her features, now captivating for an entirely different reason.

“Uh, Chris?”

Corey doesn’t even register Mick’s worried question, too busy stumbling back as the woman takes another step, her mouth opened to scream, when her whole head bursts in an explosion of brain matter and skull fragments. Her body succumbs to gravity, dropping suddenly as the blood spurts onto Corey and Mick, who’s still laying in the grass.

Corey lets his eyes wander from the woman in the gown to Chris, holding the Glock 22 he and Shawn had found in both hands, arms shaking as he stands staring with unblinking eyes at the body.

No one says a word as Chris’ arms drop and the gun falls to the ground, Mick solemnly picking it up as he stands back up and passes it to Jim, who nods and gestures for everyone to keep moving.

Corey tries not to notice how Chris is shaking so much the nose of his mask is nearly vibrating.

* * *

It takes about an hour of tense, silent movement west to Concord until Corey finally stops hearing the constant screams. Of course, he can still hear screaming, but it’s not near as loud or consistent as before.

His eyes sluggishly blink to focus on Jim and Mick ahead of him, relaxing a bit when Jim says they’re making good progress.

“We should rest,” Paul says. Corey glances over his shoulder and tries to suppress his grin at seeing the bassist giving Joey a piggy-back ride. “Joey nearly tripped over himself he’s so tired, and honestly we need some sitting time to come up with a plan.”

Jim breathes out of his nose heavily before nodding and muttering an assent. Luckily, they hadn’t needed to leave the forested areas since the attack so the seven others who were still awake basically collapsed where they stood onto the ground.

After a few moments of relative silence, Sid’s voice cut through the quiet.

“This is insane.” The DJ’s mask shifts, the eyebrows squeaking mechanically to fit his expression. “I mean, I can’t be the only one in complete and utter shock right now, right?”

Corey snorts, “Sid, all of us being in a state of shock is probably the only reason we’re even still alive right now.”

“Well, yeah, but I mean…” Sid coughs, then lowers his voice as if his next words were blasphemous. “This is a real apocalypse. Like, society has collapsed and zombies ate twenty-thousand people kind of apocalypse. What the fuck!”

“I seriously doubt those were actual zombies, dude,” Chris speaks up, voice quiet and hollow, tilting his head to the side and making his mask’s nose wobble, “Didn’t seem like the living dead to me.”

“No,” Craig agrees, “not living dead. Infected.”

“Like _28 Days Later_?” Shawn asks, chuckling. “Fuckers got the Rage?”

Craig just shrugs, eyes falling to the ground. “Doesn’t matter what it is now. Infection’s spreading regardless.”

“What makes you say it’s an infection?” Jim chimes in, eyes focusing on Craig and his ducked head.

“Lot more plausible than corpses rising from the grave,” is the reply, then silence once more from 133.

“I gotta say I agree with Craig. Plus, the one that attacked on the interstate was in a hospital gown. I guarantee you that’s not a coincidence.” Mick looks around at his bandmates, sighing. “But either way we need to watch each other and try not to get attacked- again. At least until we figure out how the infection’s spread. Can’t risk any of us getting it.”

“Alright so that’s part of a plan,” Paul says, nodding his head in agreement, “watch each others’ backs and run like hell if the fuckers come after us.”

“But we need more to go off of than just that,” Jim adds, gesturing with his hands. “After Concord, where do we go?”  
  


Quietude, then: “Home.”

All heads, even Joey, who is still waking up, turn to look at Corey. The singer meets their gazes, his eyes hard behind the lifeless facade of his mask.

“It’s the only place we have left to go,” Corey says, voice vacant as his mind flashes to better days, hell, even better hours from earlier the same day, “Des Moines.”


End file.
